Developing flavor ideas that travel across markets

The question

A spirits brand was searching widely for new flavors, and whatever it chose next would be judged by drinkers in more than one country.

That set two questions, in order. Which directions were worth developing at all? And what would each one need, in each market, to work for drinkers with different tastes and habits?

Our approach

The ideas came from the brand’s own people: a team from across its markets created them with us in a digital sprint, working in groups, in pairs and alone.

We developed the strongest into concepts and took every direction to drinkers in three markets with the same three questions, what works, what stands in the way and what would have to change. Asked the same way everywhere, those questions let each direction be compared on equal terms and placed by how much it would need to change.

What the team came away with

Development could now start from a shortlist, with each direction’s strengths, what stood in its way and what it would take, set out market by market.

Every concept arrived with suggestions for refining it, from the idea at its heart to its look and its name, so each direction went back to the team with a way forward.

The team kept the sprint’s outputs too: the mass of early ideas, the areas it had chosen to pursue and the ideas it had developed itself, so the thinking behind every concept stayed in the brand’s hands.

Because every direction had faced the same questions everywhere, the team could see which ideas would travel as they were and which would need a version for each market.